Contaminants pose serious threats to human well-being, ecosystem health, water quality, agricultural productivity, and industrial readiness.  These include legacy contaminants such as heavy metals, pesticides, harmful algal toxins, chlorinated solvents, and polychlorinated biphenyls, as well as emerging contaminants including per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), microplastics, and tire-derived chemicals (e.g., 6PPD-quinone).  Addressing these challenges requires improved process-based understanding of contaminant fate, transport, and transformation across environmental systems.  Such knowledge is critical for developing successful and cost-effective strategies for environmental monitoring, remediation, and risk assessment.

This session invites contributions from laboratory and field studies, modeling, and data-driven approaches that advance understanding of: (1) contaminant sampling, instrumentation, and quantification; (2) occurrence, distribution, and source identification; (3) fate and transport across environmental compartments, including unsaturated and saturated zones; (4) transformation, bioaccumulation, and toxicity; (5) remediation technologies; (6) mechanistic, process-based modeling; and (7) applications of artificial intelligence and machine learning to contaminant processes and management.

• B - Biogeosciences
• EP - Earth and Planetary Surface Processes
• GH - GeoHealth
• SY - Science and Society